Sandworm

A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers

By: Andy Greenberg

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall

Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

"With the nuance of a reporter and the pace of a thriller writer, Andy Greenberg gives us a glimpse of the cyberwars of the future while at the same time placing his story in the long arc of Russian and Ukrainian history." —Anne Applebaum, bestselling author of Twilight of Democracy

The true story of the most devastating act of cyberwarfare in history and the desperate hunt to identify and track the elite Russian agents behind it: "[A] chilling account of a Kremlin-led cyberattack, a new front in global conflict" (Financial Times).

In 2014, the world witnessed the start of a mysterious series of cyberattacks. Targeting American utility companies, NATO, and electric grids in Eastern Europe, the strikes grew ever more brazen. They culminated in the summer of 2017, when the malware known as NotPetya was unleashed, penetrating, disrupting, and paralyzing some of the world's largest businesses—from drug manufacturers to software developers to shipping companies. At the attack's epicenter in Ukraine, ATMs froze. The railway and postal systems shut down. Hospitals went dark. NotPetya spread around the world, inflicting an unprecedented ten billion dollars in damage—the largest, most destructive cyberattack the world had ever seen.

The hackers behind these attacks are quickly gaining a reputation as the most dangerous team of cyberwarriors in history: a group known as Sandworm. Working in the service of Russia's military intelligence agency, they represent a persistent, highly skilled force, one whose talents are matched by their willingness to launch broad, unrestrained attacks on the most critical infrastructure of their adversaries. They target government and private sector, military and civilians alike.

A chilling, globe-spanning detective story, Sandworm considers the danger this force poses to our national security and stability. As the Kremlin's role in foreign government manipulation comes into greater focus, Sandworm exposes the realities not just of Russia's global digital offensive, but of an era where warfare ceases to be waged on the battlefield. It reveals how the lines between digital and physical conflict, between wartime and peacetime, have begun to blur—with world-shaking implications.

©2019 Andy Greenberg (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Winner of the Cornelius Ryan Citation for Excellence from the Overseas Press Club of America

"Sandworm is a sobering examination of an underreported story: The menace Russian hackers pose to the critical infrastructure of the West. With the nuance of a reporter and the pace of a thriller writer, Andy Greenberg gives us a glimpse of the cyberwars of the future while at the same time placing his story in the long arc of Russian and Ukrainian history." —Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Gulag and Red Famine

"An important front-line view of the changing cyberthreats that are shaping our world, their creators, and the professionals who try to protect us.”—Nature

“As Russia has attacked, Greenberg has not been far behind, reporting on these incursions in Wired while searching for their perpetrators. Like the best true-crime writing, his narrative is both perversely entertaining and terrifying.” —New York Review of Books

Thru the eyes of the Sandworm's hunters and prey

I've always enjoyed Wired's in-depth reporting on major cyber attacks, so when Andy Greenberg put out a book last week I grabbed it. While many recent books have been about stolen personal data and influence campaigns by China and North Korea, this books has a clear focus: weapons of cyber destruction by Russia.

Chronogically, the book starts with the first attack on the Ukrainian power grid in 2015. This attack use the Dark Energy malware, which included the first of many references to Frank Herbert's Dune, hence Sandworm. If you have read other books on cyber war, you can probably skip the first two sections.

It gets interesting in Section 3 with the second hack on the Ukrainian power grid, in which experts note that the attackers held back from doing their worst possible damage. The group was also responsible for NotPetya, the most damaging cyber attack till date that ravaged the Ukraine and also several MNCs, who had links to Ukraine.

Greenberg also links the group to the hacking of various elections and concludes that all these attacks - whether noisy influence campaigns or stealthy destruction of infrastructure - are all by Russia's GRU and all have the primary goal of influence.

What makes the book very readable is seeing the story of each attach unfold through the viewpoints of key players in each incident. So while I may have revealed some of the takeaway, I am definitely not spoiling the enjoyment of anyone who wants to read it.

For some samples of Greenberg's writing (you can skip these sections in the book later):
https://www.wired.com/2016/03/inside-cunning-unprecedented-hack-ukraines-power-grid/
https://www.wired.com/story/crash-override-malware/
https://www.wired.com/story/untold-story-2018-olympics-destroyer-cyberattack/

did not want it to end

Sandworms' documentary narration was spot on and kept me coming back and looking forward to each listening session. As a software professional and manager, it also scared the crap out of me (scared straight), inspiring our DevOps to double down on our discipline and expand our security expenditures in automation and training. I like to call it "rational paranoia" now. we'll make it required reading for the DevSecOps automation engineering team. To the authors and the audible team, thanks for the great "read"!

Exceptional Story, Very Good Narration - Worth it

I wanted to learn more about the world of cyberwarfare and if/how it connected with the Kremlin. This book is the quintessential treatise on that subject and leaves no doubt about the origins of many prominent "hacking" incidents worldwide. The well written story is a detailed (but not too detailed) account of an investigative journey into cyberwar and it's implications upon global infrastructure. Excellent "read." One note, the narration, provided by the seasoned Mark Bramhall takes a moment to get comfortable with. It's clearly an older voice but after a few minutes, his precise yet flexible tone becomes the appropriate vector for this fascinating story. Worth your time.

Must Read

Easy to follow for non programming folks like myself.
incredibly thorough and in-depth in the right areas.
You get more than what you are paying for.

Extensive research pays off

I was very impressed with Andy Greenberg‘s research on the subject of cyber warfare. He traveled the world to talk directly to people with first-hand knowledge of the events written in this book. These events are real, but very poorly covered by the main stream media in the United States. This book should actually be read (or listen to) by anybody and everybody that is a citizen on this planet. It is entertaining eye-opening and inspirational.

Best cyber security story

On the current dependency of the internet and higher risk of security threats. This book shows the current situation on the bigger players on hacking. If you are in Information Security field... You will see how your work is important to defend your network infrastructure from others who want to harm it.

Exceptional!

A MUST READ for anyone interested in the harsh realities of cyber warfare and the dangerous possibilities it poses to our civilization.

Crucial listening for the coming years

More than just a tech whodunnit. Also gives the necessary policy and geopolitical context surrounding these paramilitary issues. Required listening if you want to understand where the world is going in the years to come. The tech perspective often gets missed out when people discuss geopolitics and international / foreign policy issues - do not leave this critical aspect of it out of your purview.

IMO this book is suited for people of all levels of technological familiarity. There are brief explanatory passages where required, but they're not so cumbersome as to bore the more cyber aware reader, and not so complex as to be weighty on those new to the subject.

A great work

Greenberg’s history of Sandworm is an outstanding work in the history of espionage journalism. Highly recommend.

Excellent book!

Andy Greenberg brings to life the cybersecurity concerns Americans need to know and care about, but often have little regard for due to their very often technical nature.

Andy brings clarity to the issues, understanding to the non-technical person (like myself), and introduces you to a new world of threats, problems, and ways that America and her allies can be attacked and crippled without being physically invaded.

Once you’ve read this book you can’t unsee the things it warns about. Best book I’ve read in a long time.